WEBINAR:On-Demand

"Even if you need a computer right away, there are
plenty of good reasons to build one rather than buy one. You
control the parts, so you get exactly what you need at the price
you can best afford. You're assured of being able to upgrade any
(or all) of the pieces later, when you have more money to spend.
And, perhaps most importantly, you get the satisfaction of doing it
yourself and maintaining complete control over it from the very
instant you open the boxes. No matter how little you want to drop,
building your own computer is still the best way to go.

"So we asked ourselves: What's the lowest point at which these
two goals could intersect? If we needed a simple computer right
away, and wanted to spend as little as possible, what could we
build? We knew we wanted to aim low, almost ridiculously
low—so we decided on what seemed like almost an unthinkable
total: $200, which would include everything needed for the base
computer itself (but not counting the monitor, keyboard, and mouse,
or tax and shipping charges)."